RE: Nondual Week: Panentheism & Interspirituality – What’s Jesus Got to do With It? | Mike Morrell – January 31, 2012 – want to follow up yesterday’s Ken Wilber interview with this blast from the past – something I wrote for the previous iteration of TheOOZE It would be difficult to improve on that BLAST! Let me offer a strategic note re: interreligious dialogue If one accepts that, formatively, in most traditions, belonging precedes desiring which precedes behaving which is last followed by believing … If those desires are largely formed by practices which engage us participatively and holistically … If so much of the early stages of the journey within most of our great traditions thus entails evaluative attunement to reality via participatory praxes prior to any interpretive indoctrination via conceptual map-making and is thus much more nonpropositional than propositional … Then there is an INTERFAITH BONANZA that awaits us if we would only [BRACKET] the [propositional elements] of our interfaith exchanges, at least at the start, to lead with the nonpropositional (practices)… Then, when we do begin to engage the propositional elements of our respective traditions, there is yet a further INTERFAITH BONANZA to be enjoyed if we would only [BRACKET] our [Christology], at least at the start, to lead with our pneumatology (the Spirit)! Now, some might offer the objection that many doctrines are inextricably intertwined with certain practices and that may well be true but, for all sorts of reasons (some listed above), the converse is manifestly not true. If we’d approach interfaith exchanges in this manner, we’d have so much to celebrate in the way of belonging, desiring and behaving and even regarding some rudimentary shared beliefs regarding the Spirit! And this could help pave the way for a more fruitful dialogue regarding the propositional elements of our faiths, which are not unimportant. Importantly, even the term inter-religious dialogue reveals a certain rationalistic, dualistic hegemony in its emphasis on the dia-logical. I now prefer the term inter-faith exchange because it goes beyond the logical and propositional, but not without them, to include the more robustly relational and nondual approaches to such human value-realizations as solidarity and compassion. Finally, I don’t advocate this approach only for the academic and theological guilds but feel strongly that we need to popularize it and make it more accessible, perhaps through 1
storytelling vehicles like The Shack. In a country and a world so torn apart by destructive polarizations that are grounded in religious differences, this strategy for engaging the religious-other could be a viable route to more peace, less war.
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